The War on Christmas

Although it was never an official plank of the Republican Party platform, Donald Trump repeatedly promised during the 2016 presidential election campaign to “bring back” the holiday greeting “Merry Christmas” — which, to hear him tell it, had been all but obliterated by the forces of political correctness. As president, Trump repeated the promise yet again in October 2017 at the Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., proclaiming, “We’re saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”

Without using the phrase “War on Christmas,” Trump was essentially drawing a battle line in a century-old debate that is not just about the 25th of December, but a fundamental disagreement over whether the United States is a secular or a Christian country.

Former Fox News media personality Bill O’Reilly, the most notorious War-on-Christmas alarmist of the past two decades, recited his conspiratorial version of the controversy during a television broadcast in 2004:

All over the country, Christmas is taking flak. In Denver this past weekend, no religious floats were permitted in the holiday parade there. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the holiday tree and no Christian Christmas symbols are allowed in the public schools. Federated Department Stores, Macy’s, have done away with the Christmas greeting, “Merry Christmas.”

Now, all of this anti-Christian stuff is absurd, and may even be a bias situation. But the real reason it’s happening has little to do with Christmas and everything to do with organized religion.

Secular progressives realize that America as it is now will never approve of gay marriage, partial birth abortion, euthanasia, legalized drugs, income redistribution through taxation, and many other progressive visions because of religious opposition.

But if the secularists can destroy religion in the public arena, the brave new progressive world is a possibility. That’s what happened in Canada.

But Trump and O’Reilly are hardly the first to voice concern that some malignant social force — be it political correctness, secular progressives, Communists, Democrats, “the international Jew,” or all of the above — is bent on destroying Christianity (and with it, America itself) via a series of sly, incremental steps beginning with downgrading Christmas to an unmentionable holiday.

The 1920s

“Last Christmas most people had a hard time finding Christmas cards that indicated in any way that Christmas commemorated Someone’s Birth,” wrote Henry Ford in 1921, more than 80 years before Bill O’Reilly would utter similar complaints on Fox News.

The iconic American business tycoon and anti-Semite issued a series of pamphlets in the 1920s (collected under the title The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem) accusing American Jews of, among countless other crimes, engaging in a conspiracy to “abolish” Christmas celebrations in public places:

Not only do the Jews disagree with Christian teaching — which is their perfect right, and no one dare question it — but they seek to interfere with it. It is not religious tolerance in the midst of religious difference, but religious attack that they preach and practice. The whole record of Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and certain patriotic songs shows that.

What Ford called “Jewish opposition to Christmas” actually boiled down to a few instances of Jewish leaders challenging the teaching of Christianity in public schools — as when a Massachusetts school board was lobbied, and initially consented, to remove all references to Jesus from classroom “Christmas exercises” in 1912. Jewish groups also challenged classroom Bible readings, which were not uncommon at the time. However, the groups did not argue against Christianity itself, but rather launched a First Amendment challenge to proselytizing in public schools.

Yet Ford went so far as to accuse the Jewish owners of some of America’s great department stores (“the Levys and the Isaacs and the Goldsteins and the Silvermans”) of “profiteering” on the sale of Christmas merchandise while conspiring at the same time to undermine the religious significance of the holiday.

The 1950s

Christmas again became a battleground in the struggle over America’s identity in the 1950s, when a rise in religiosity after World War II reached its peak. A 1997 history of the period cited some astounding statistics about that trend:

On a typical Sunday morning in the period from 1955-58, almost half of all Americans were attending church — the highest percentage in U.S. history. During the 1950s, nationwide church membership grew at a faster rate than the population, from 57 percent of the U.S. population in 1950 to 63.3 percent in 1960.

A 1954 report in Women’s Wear Daily cited developments pointing to a nationwide “spiritual trend” in retail holiday presentations:

The Christmas Street Decoration Committee of the Waterloo [Iowa] Chamber of Commerce followed the lead of many other towns in Iowa putting “Christ back in Christmas.” To express this idea, a Nativity scene was place in Soldiers and Sailors Park here. It is lighted at night. A 46-inch aluminum star appears above the 15 life sized figures in the scene.

The post-World War II religious revival also had an impact on public school curricula. A 1955 resolution adopted by the National Council of the Churches of Christ (representing 30 Protestant denominations) explicitly called for the inclusion of religious teachings in classrooms:

It is expected that [public schools] shall teach that religion is an essential aspect of our national heritage and culture, that this nation subsists under the governance of God and that our moral and ethical values rest upon religious grounds and sanctions. To do otherwise would be to distort history.

Some Americans were alarmed at this last development, among them Jules Cohen, national coordinator for the prominent Jewish organization the National Community Relations Advisory Council, who warned in 1957 that “the principle of separation of church and state [is] under attack from many quarters and in a variety of ways.”

The pushback against increased religiosity was on display in a 1957 controversy over erection of a nativity scene at a small-town public high school in Ossining, New York. After the board of education approved the proposal for the display, officials received letters of protest from local residents arguing that it would violate the First Amendment. The board to reconsidered and ultimately rescinded their approval. They, in turn, were accused of “intolerance” in a now-familiar cycle. Redbook reported at the time:

Within a week the question of whether a religious display could properly be located on public-school property had degenerated into a bitter community wrangle. The Crèche Committee hotly insisted that the Board of Education hold a public meeting to reopen the question. The Rev. Frank Klausman, of Ossining Heights Church, charged that the members of the Board of Education “have allowed themselves to be coerced by a few and in the name of tolerance have committed an act of intolerance.”

These types of struggles brought out alarmists, most notably the far-right John Birch Society, whose pamphlet “There Goes Christmas?!” warned:

One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas — to denude the event of its religious meaning. … The UN fanatics launched their assault on Christmas in 1958, but too late to get very far before the holy day was at hand. They are already busy, however, at this very moment, on efforts to poison the 1959 Christmas season with their high-pressure propaganda. What they now want to put over on the American people is simply this: Department stores throughout the country are to utilize UN symbols and emblems as Christmas decorations.

The 1970s – 1990s

The civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s presented a head-on challenge to the conservatism of the ’50s, setting the stage for broader social changes (and reactions to those changes) over the next few decades. The ’70s and ’80s saw a shift toward greater recognition of and sensitivity toward Americans’ growing ethnic and religious diversity. Secularism was on the rise, too, as reflected in letters to newspaper editors complaining in the mid-’80s, much as Henry Ford had done in the ‘20s, that “Merry Christmas” was giving way to “Happy holidays” even as the big department stores maximized their profits via seasonal advertising.

The cultural change also reached in public schools, which saw increasingly diverse student populations at the same time that court rulings reaffirming the separation of church and state mandated the non-preferential treatment of religion in the classroom. The Los Angeles Times captured the transitional moment in a 1984 article:

When Danube Avenue Elementary School presented its first holiday program 25 years ago, it all seemed so easy.

Most of the students were Anglo and Christian, and the tone of the times dictated that those who didn’t celebrate Christmas would do their best to blend in with the majority.

But times and changed, and so has Danube. The school is now attended by Latinos, Asians, Christians and Jews. Some students travel to the Granada Hills campus from central Los Angeles neighborhoods where little English is spoken and Christmas celebrations don’t include visions of sugarplums. And the sensibilities of the 1980s state that the cultural traditions of all ethnic groups deserve equal time in the classroom.

The Supreme Court played an active role in secularizing public spaces throughout the decade. In 1980, the court ruled that posting the Ten Commandments in public schools is unconstitutional. In 1985, it found that Alabama’s “moment of silence” statute was unconstitutionally biased in favor of prayer. A 1987 ruling disallowed the teaching of “creation science” alongside evolution. And, apropos Christmas, the court decided in 1989 (in Allegheny County v. ACLU) that it is unconstitutional to erect a nativity scene on public property.

Ironically, these changes occurred amid a resurgence of conservatism signaled by the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980 and the rise of the evangelical Christian right, which continued into the 1990s and 2000s. The two-term presidency of Bill Clinton, a socially progressive Democrat elected in 1992, only exacerbated America’s continuing identity crisis. Opposition grew to the secularization that had been on the rise since the 1960s.

2000 and Beyond

As far as we know, the term “War on Christmas” was coined by conservative author Peter Brimelow, whose race-based critique of U.S. immigration policy, Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster (Harper Perennial, 1995), in many ways prefigured the white nationalist political movement of today.

In 1999, Brimelow launched the polemical web site VDARE.com (named after Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas), which, besides being condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for its “racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant” postings, would become ground zero in the battle to “save” Christmas. Brimelow’s December 2000 post containing the first known mention of a “War on Christmas” warned readers that said war was “part of the struggle to abolish America.”

Part of Brimelow’s schtick was publishing annual compilations of the most egregious “attacks” on Christmas, citing the same kinds of examples Bill O’Reilly would later cite in his broadcasts:

“The City Manager in Eugene, OR has banned Christmas trees on city property. Reportedly he consulted with the People for the American Way and with the ACLU (usual suspects) and got their wholehearted support.”

“My children attend a private CATHOLIC school [in Shreveport, LA]. They have just been informed that ‘Happy Holidays’ will replace ‘Merry Christmas’ since the latter is ‘offensive’ to non-Christians. A parochial school, no less. P.S. this is the same school, which banned anything `Confederate` so as not to ‘insult’ the (literally) one or two blacks in the entire school.”

“The tipping point in the obliteration of Christmas came, I think, in the first year of the Clinton Administration. While everyone else was absorbed in the ‘gays in the military’ flap, I noted that the United States Postal Service had adopted the slogan, ‘We deliver for Yule.’ Since then, no Christmas from the USPS or, so far as I can tell, anything else related to the federal government.”

In 2004, the same year that Bill O’Reilly first declared the War on Christmas a national emergency, a group joined the fray called the Committee to Save Merry Christmas, which, using language not dissimilar to Henry Ford’s, said their purpose was “to protest the fact that big retailers profit from Christmas shopping dollars but refuse to mention the holiday by name.” The organization followed O’Reilly in calling for a boycott of Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and other retail outlets owned by Federated Department Stores to compel them to reinstate the phrase “Merry Christmas” in their holiday presentations and greetings to customers.

The following year, 2005, saw the publication of Fox News contributor John Gibson’s book The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought. Meanwhile, O’Reilly revised and extended his roster of “anti-Christmas” merchants, adding Sears, Kmart, Kohl’s, Target, Walmart, and Costco to the “naughty” list. Christian groups ranging from the American Family Association to the Catholic League joined the retail boycott just as Federated Department Stores, perhaps feeling the heat, reversed course and encouraged employees to start wishing their customers a good, old-fashioned “Merry Christmas” again.

By 2006, nearly all of the retailers in O’Reilly and crew’s gunsights had followed Federated’s lead and announced their intentions to use the word “Christmas” in their holiday greetings. O’Reilly declared victory in the War on Christmas. “You know, we did it last year, we won the war,” he announced on his radio show in December 2006. “Walmart and Macy’s and all the big stores are saying ‘Merry Christmas,’ and they’ve stopped ordering their employees not to say it — most of them.”

Despite the declared victory, O’Reilly went on touting the War on Christmas for years to come (most recently in 2016, months before his abrupt termination from Fox News), regaling his television audience with examples of holiday “political correctness” supposedly tearing apart the social fabric of the country.

Is There Really a War on Christmas?

The evidence suggests there is no actual conspiracy to erase Christmas and destroy American civilization in the process, although some people clearly perceive it to be the case. Belief in a “War on Christmas” seems to go hand-in-hand with the belief that the United States is a fundamentally Christian nation whose social fabric is weakened or torn by religious diversity and secularism.

The fear that Christmas is “under attack” has been a recurring, if not cyclical, phenomenon in the United States of America for the better part of the last century. It tends to flare up when anxieties about immigration, secularization, and other perceived threats to the established social order increase. But these only represent a “war” on the holiday if one sees Christianity, and Christmas in particular, as central to the nation’s identity — and if one sees the use of public space as essential to the religious celebration. After all, since the United States’ founding, there has never been a law preventing the celebration of Christmas in any way in individuals’ homes, churches, or private spaces.

If one sees the United States as a secular nation, one is unlikely to perceive Christmas as under attack — no more so than Yom Kippur, Ramadan, or any other religious tradition that goes largely uncelebrated in public and commercial spaces.

History shows there is a regular ebb and flow of faith and secularism in America, along with inevitable fluctuations in the ethnic and religious makeup of the country. These have contributed to changes in how Christmas is celebrated over time. Such changes have not always been welcomed by all, and have sometimes been seen (or at least presented) as pernicious, but they are not the result of any grand conspiracy.

Postscript

We would be remiss not to point out that the one and only time Christmas was actually banned on what would later become U.S. soil, it was by Christians.

In 1659, the Puritan lawmakers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony followed the example of their brethren in England by issuing an edict outlawing the observance of Christmas (and other “superstitious” holidays):

For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countries, to the great dishonor of God and offence of others, it is therefore ordered by this Court and the authority thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon such accountants as aforesaid, every person so offending shall pay of every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the county.

Why? Because, as befitted their name, the Puritans found feasting, wassailing, gift giving, and wishing one another a merry Christmas ungodly and sinful (we suspect not even the secularized greeting “Happy holidays” would have been acceptable to this lot).

Despite a 22-year ban on celebrating it (the law was repealed in 1681), Christmas survived unscathed to eventually become the most popular (not to mention durable) holiday celebrated in America.

 

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Insurance companies deploy private firefighters in wildfire-scorched California

For the wealthy, extra peace of mind comes with a high price tag.

by  MATT HICKMAN –

A home in the fabled Southern California beach town of Malibu burns in the Woolsey Fire. (Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

As the smoke begins to clear in the well-heeled city of Hidden Hills, California, a small handful of homeowners are discovering that as exhausting as keeping up with the Kardashians can be, it certainly doesn’t hurt to live next to them.

Several residents in this sleepy celebrity enclave tucked away in the western San Fernando Valley have Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West to thank for their own multi-million dollar homes being spared from the Woolsey Fire, a wind-fueled inferno that began roaring through Los Angeles and Ventura counties on Nov. 8, and as of this writing is only 47 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.

Or, to be more accurate, these residents likely have the Wests’ home insurance policy to thank.

As first reported by TMZ, the raging wildfire began to encroach on Chez Kim and Kanye shortly after Hidden Hills was placed under mandatory evacuation. It was then that a hose- and shovel-wielding squad of private firefighters descended on the property, successfully saving it from the fate that has befallen homes belonging to other well-known — and not so-well-known — names in surrounding communities including Calabasas and Malibu. (Although first reported as being destroyed, it appears that the Malibu pad of estranged Kardashian parental figure, Caitlyn Jenner, narrowly survived the blaze.)

“The couple’s home sits at the end of a cul-de-sac and borders a field — meaning if their place went up in flames, it would start a domino effect on the whole neighborhood. Ultimately, they [the private firefighters] successfully saved the Wests’ $60 million house … and countless others on the block.”

While TMZ notes that the private team of firefighters was “hired” by the Kardashian-West clan to fend off the flames, it’s likely that the couple’s insurance provider — in a maneuver to prevent potentially catastrophic damages — deployed the team to save the very, very expensive home.

Hundreds of homes have been lost to the fast-spreading Woolsey Fire. Over 250,000 people have been evacuated and at least two lives have been lost since the blaze began on Nov. 8 (Photo: David McNew/Getty Images)

A supplementary (and spendy) mode of protection

And, as it turns out, this — insurance companies offering private fire protection services to policyholders — isn’t as uncommon as you might think.

As Quartz reported late last year, major insurers such as AIG and Chubbs have been offering policyholders an extra layer of protection for some time now (2005 and 2008, respectively) when the home in question happens to be located in a wildfire-prone area.

Often, and not surprisingly so, the property is required to be valued at $1 million or more. Having access to professionally trained private firefighting teams — or as Vanity Fair calls them “concierge firefighters” — can add thousands upon thousands of dollars to a homeowners’ annual home insurance tab depending on the value of the property.

And for those who can afford such peace of mind, this is one niche service well worth the cost. As Quartz notes, it’s also financially advantageous to insurers. Deploying private firefighting teams to wealthy ZIP codes doesn’t come cheap but it is ultimately less costly than paying out a policyholder whose multi-million dollar manse and everything in it has been reduced to smoldering ruins.

Joseph Kahn

✔@JosephKahn

Rich people hire private firefighters to save their mansion, splash water on houses next to them.

TMZ

✔@TMZ

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Hire Private Firefighters, Save Neighbors from Wildfires http://dlvr.it/Qr4CMq 

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4:04 PM – Nov 12, 2018

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Per the National Wildfire Suppression Association, there are 150 private firefighting companies across the country with a total of 12,000 firefighters and support staff in their ranks. Numerous ZIP codes — predominately wealthy ones — offer the services of these companies in a total of 18 states. The cost incurred by these firms after responding to the threat of a wildfire is then billed directly to the insurers, not to the homeowners.

As David Torgensen, president of Bozeman, Montana-based wildfire mitigation firm Wildfire Defense Systems, tells Quartz, his teams possess the same certifications as public firefighting entities and work in cooperation with, not independently of, local and state authorities. Their work is also predominately preventative. That is, they arrive on the scene before the fire to clear away combustible object, dig fire lines and spray the perimeter of a vulnerable property with fire retardant gels (as seems to be the case with the Kardashian-West property in Hidden Hills.)

On that note, Torgensen points out that his firm doesn’t exclusively cater to ultra-rich policyholders. He notes that 90 percent of the properties covered by insurers that his company partners with are “average-priced” and not celebrity-owned mini-palaces located in the toniest of California neighborhoods. Firms that work outside of the insurance framework and directly on a for-hire basis with individual homeowners, which could be the case with Kim and Kanye, are more rare.

A Malibu abode is incinerated by the Woolsey Fire. Spanning Los Angeles and Ventura counties, it has burned nearly 100,000 acres. (Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

“We were literally surrounded by fires,” Sonoma County homeowner Fred Giuffrida told NBC News of the threat against his 16-acre ranch when a spate of raging wildfires including the intensely destructive Tubbs Fire broke out across Northern California in October 2017. “All the vegetation up to the pool area was burned, and they had stopped it before it got to the house.”

The “they” in this instance were professional firefighters — a team from Torgensen’s Wildfire Defense Systems — automatically deployed by Giuffrida’s insurer, Chubb, through its Wildfire Defense Services program.

Speaking to NBC, Torgensen again stresses the supplementary nature of his firm, which enables first responders from public agencies to better focus on active fires in lieu of mitigating risk around insured homes. “Our specific goal is to work with policyholder structures,” he says. “We’re only allowed to access the properties that we’re given permission to access by policyholders.”

“They were fighting battles in so many places, so I think the fact that this supplemented it really saved our house,” adds Giuffrida.

Firefighters work to protect a home in the city of Agoura Hills. Many neighborhoods have since allowed evacuated residents to return. (Photo: Matthew Simmons/Getty Images)

‘I could care less who owns the house’

While the supplementary nature of private firefighting companies contracted by insurers can’t be emphasized enough, some critics point out that residential wildfire mitigation services shouldn’t only be available to those who can afford them as part of an insurance policy.

As noted by Quartz, author and activist Naomi Klein refers to the small but growing private firefighting industry as an example of what she calls
“disaster apartheid,” a phenomenon in which well-off individuals are better prepared to survive climate-related disasters than their friends and neighbors who, in this instance, might not be able to afford an insurance policy that includes rapid-response from a private entity.

Others, such as Chris Landry, volunteer battalion chief with Sonoma Valley Fire, argue that the firefighting squads deployed by insurers like AIG and Chubb don’t always work in concert with public first responders, and sometimes risk impeding the grueling and dangerous task at hand.

“I’ve never seen them check in,” Landry explains to NBC News. “We don’t have common communication. I don’t know what they’re qualified at. I don’t know where they are, because I’m not supervising them. They report to the insurer. We don’t know their equipment capabilities, their training, their level of experience.”

He adds: “I understand where the insurance companies are coming from,” says Landry. “But we don’t look at one house separate from another based on who the insurer is. I could care less who owns the house, I just want to save as many as possible — and do it safely without endangering my crews.”

The Woolsey Fire plows through West Hills. This San Fernando Valley nabe was one of many in the region under evacuation orders. (Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Stephen Poux, global head of Risk Management and Loss Prevention with AIG, argues that all fire mitigation personnel contracted by the firm are extensively trained former firefighters who are updated on new protocols and procedures as they arise.

“I cannot overemphasize the importance of safety for our employees,” he says.

Cal Fire Deputy Chief of Information Scott McLean tells NBC News that he’s not aware of private firefighters interfering at active at fire scenes or causing any sort of logistical problems. “They’re a help because of the preventative aspects,” he says. “We can work together, we just need to make sure we do work together.”

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The Independent

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Timelapse of California wildfires shows just how destructive it’s been

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Potential issues of on-the-ground communication and cooperation aside, there’s no doubt that private firefighting services fueled by what Motherboard calls the “growing risk of climate change-related damages” will only increase in ubiquity.

In addition to Woolsey Fire, which has already burned over 97,000 acres and destroyed upwards of 400 structures, there are currently two other major fires burning across the severely charred Golden State — where unprecedented wildfires are now the “new normal” — as of this writing.

Burning north of Sacramento in Butte County is the Camp Fire, which has claimed 135,000 acres and counting. Considered the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, it has taken 48 lives while destroying thousands of homes. Dozens of area residents still remain unaccounted for. It remains only 35 percent contained. Back in Ventura County, not too far from the Woolsey Fire, is the smaller (4,531 acres burned) Hill Fire, which at this point, has been almost completely snuffed out.

Click here to find out how you can help those impacted.

 

The tax windfall that wasn’t: A troubling new IRS report suggests many Americans may be giving money right back to the government

By ALEX RASKOLNIKOV –

President Donald Trump hosts an event to celebrate Congress passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act with Republican members of the House and Senate on the South Lawn of the White House December 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Americans like their tax refunds. Refunds are good for tax administration, too. Plenty of evidence shows that tax compliance is higher when taxpayers see refunds on their tax returns.

But millions of Americans looking forward to their tax refunds are about to be disappointed, even upset. They will not see their expected refunds when they file their returns in 2019. Even worse, many will be required to pay extra taxes. Why the change? The Republicans’ push to sell their tax law to the American public is the culprit.

The tax law signed by President Trump in December of 2017 made many changes to the tax code. The standard deduction increased, but the personal exemptions disappeared. Business owners got a rate cut but the deduction for state and local taxes shrunk. Mortgage interest deduction became less generous, but child credit expanded. Because of all these changes and many others, the withholding form that every American employee filed with his or her employer became outdated when 2018 arrived.

Employers needed new information from employees to keep the refunds roughly the same. But getting this information would take time. And Republicans wanted American workers to see tax savings from the 2017 tax law in their paychecks right away, before the 2018 midterm elections — whether these savings were real or not.

So the IRS took a leap of faith, came up with an updated withholding schedule as best it could, and told employers to follow it going forward. The IRS then tried to convince Americans to do a “paycheck checkup” using its new “withholding calculator” to make sure that the employers’ withholding is not grossly off the mark.

Well-intentioned, but how realistic?

Democrats had doubts about the Republican tax strategy all along. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate tax-writing committee, warned all the way back in January that “the Trump administration is tampering with Americans’ paychecks, resulting in a whopping tax bill next year.” The Trump administration dismissed these concerns as “ridiculous.”

At first, it seemed that the rushed implementation of the new tax law was not going to create a big problem. At Democrats’ request, the Government Accountability Office evaluated the new withholding regime and issued a report in July. The report concluded that the number of taxpayers who will have to pay extra tax rather than get a refund may increase by 3 million in 2018. Not chump change, but nothing earth-shattering either given the total of 150 million returns filed.

But last month a new report became public. This one came from the IRS Information Reporting Advisory Committee. And this new report drops a few troubling hints.

The IRS decision not to wait until employers obtain the necessary information from the employees, the report explains, “may cause a significant number of taxpayers to be under-withheld when they file their 2018 personal income tax returns.” The IRS calculator, it turns out, did not exactly catch fire. “Despite the IRS’s efforts to inform taxpayers to check their withholding and encourage the use of the ‘calculator’ on the IRS website, usage of the ‘calculator’ through completion has been minimal because of the complexity (per IRS comments).”

How concerned is the Advisory Committee about a major increase in the number of “under-withheld” taxpayers who will have to pay extra tax during the filing season? Concerned enough to officially recommend that the IRS waive penalties for under-withholding.

That’s right, if you did nothing during 2018 about your taxes at all, you may end up owing not just extra taxes, but penalties as well — all because the IRS decided to rely on the old forms that you may have given to your employer years ago. The idea, of course, was for you to “start seeing a lot more money in your paycheck” as soon as possible, as Trump said. Unfortunately, all that money can come right out of your bank account in a few months, and then some.

If the IRS Advisory Committee is worried, you should be as well. So do yourself a favor — check that IRS withholding calculator. You may need to cut back on your holiday shopping after that.

Raskolnikov is Wilbur H. Friedman Professor of Tax Law at Columbia Law School.

 

The US just elected 9 new scientists to Congress, including an ocean expert, a nurse, and a biochemist

Hilary Brueck and Peter Kotecki – 

Congress just picked up several new science and health experts.

 Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images

The faces of Capitol Hill are changing.

When the 116th Congress heads to Washington in January, there will be a record number of women in the ranks — at least 123, according to the news website Axios, including the first Muslim women, the first Somali-American, and the first Native American women.

There will be more scientists too.

On Tuesday, nine new science-credentialed candidates were elected: one senator and eight members of the House.

The members of the current 115th Congress include one physicist, one microbiologist, and one chemist, as well as eight engineers and one mathematician. The medical professions are slightly better represented, with three nurses and 15 doctors, as well as at least three veterinarians.

The new winners will bolster those science ranks. The Democratic candidates who won all ran successful campaigns with the support of a nonprofit political action committee called 314 Action, which started in 2016 and is dedicated to recruiting, training, and funding scientists and healthcare workers who want to run for political office. (One Republican engineer turned businessman won a race in Oklahoma, without support from the PAC.)

“Scientists are essentially problem-solvers,” Shaughnessy Naughton, the president of 314 Action, told Business Insider before the election results came in.

Since Congress often wrestles with complex issues like climate change, cybersecurity, and how to provide fairer, cheaper healthcare, Naughton said she thought the US should put more scientists into the decision-making body.

“Who better to be tackling these issues than scientists?” she said.

Here’s what to know about the new scientists heading to the Hill.

Jacky Rosen, a computer programmer who positioned herself as a moderate Democrat, beat her Republican opponent, Dean Heller, in the US Senate race in Nevada.

John Locher/AP

Rosen, who two years ago was elected to represent Nevada’s 3rd District in the House, touted her role in the construction of a large solar array in a Las Vegas suburb that she said lowered her synagogue’s energy bill by 70%.

During the campaign, she criticized Heller for his deciding vote on a law letting internet service providers sell consumer data without their permission. Despite initially opposing efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Heller also changed his stance on the healthcare law and supported a Republican replacement plan.

Nevada’s turnout was enormous, with twice as many early voters as there were in the 2014 midterm elections.

Chrissy Houlahan, an industrial engineer, Democrat, and Air Force veteran, won the House seat in Pennsylvania’s 6th District.

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Houlahan, who said she would focus on making healthcare more affordable, defeated her Republican challenger, Greg McCauley, a tax lawyer who has owned 20 Wendy’s franchises, after Rep. Ryan Costello decided not to seek reelection.

Houlahan is one of several women who will represent states that currently have no women in the House. She will be the 6th District’s first Democratic representative since 2003.

In South Carolina’s 1st District, which has been red since 1981, Joe Cunningham, an ocean scientist, defeated the Republican hopeful Katie Arrington.

Mic Smith/AP

Cunningham, who is also a lawyer, sparred with Arrington throughout the campaign over the future of offshore drilling. His expertise in this area won over the Republican mayors of the coastal cities of Folly Beach and Isle of Palms.

Arrington, who has served in South Carolina’s House of Representatives, does not oppose offshore drilling. She emphasized national issues such as immigration and President Donald Trump’s proposed wall along the US-Mexico border, while Cunningham focused on local issues.

Cunningham won the race by 4,036 votes, a margin of 1.4 percentage points. An outcome with a margin of 1 percentage point or less would have triggered an automatic recount.

Sean Casten, a biochemical engineer, defeated Rep. Peter Roskam, the Republican incumbent, in Illinois’ 6th District.

314 Action

Casten, who founded a waste-energy recovery company with his father, was victorious in a district that had been a Republican stronghold since 1970.

Roskam, who has represented the district since 2007, has called the consensus on climate change “junk science.” After Casten decided to run, Roskam joined the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus.

During his campaign, Casten frequently criticized Trump and focused on healthcare, climate change, gun control, and LGBTQ rights.

Elaine Luria, a nuclear engineer, won her House seat in Virginia, becoming the first Democrat since 2008 to represent the 2nd District.

314 Action

Luria, who joined the US Navy when she was 17, spent 20 years operating nuclear reactors as an engineer and Navy commander. She defeated Rep. Scott Taylor on Tuesday after focusing her campaign on expanding the Affordable Care Act, pushing for tighter gun laws, and increasing the minimum wage.

Taylor, a former Navy Seal, was seeking his second term in Congress. In September, The Virginian-Pilot reported that Taylor was subpoenaed to testify in a lawsuit alleging that some of his campaign staff members circulated fraudulent petitions to help get an independent candidate on the district’s ballot.

In Washington state, Kim Schrier, a pediatrician, defeated former state Sen. Dino Rossi to become the 8th District’s first Democratic representative.

Elaine Thompson/AP

Schrier was leading with about 53% of the vote as of Wednesday afternoon, and Rossi conceded later in the dayafter new vote totals put Schrier even further ahead.

Since the 8th District was created in 1983, only three Republicans have been elected to represent it. This year’s 8th District election was the most expensive House race in Washington state history.

Schrier, who started her medical practice more than 15 years ago, will become the first female doctor in Congress.

In Illinois’ 14th District, Lauren Underwood, a registered nurse, unseated Randy Hultgren, the four-term Republican incumbent.

314 Action

Underwood was a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services under President Barack Obama. In the role, she focused on preventing and responding to bioterrorism threats, public-health emergencies, and other disasters.

This year, Underwood focused her campaign on expanding access to healthcare, noting that she has a preexisting condition: an irregular heart rhythm.

She will be the first black woman to represent the 14th District, which is about 86% white.

The only new Republican scientist in Congress so far is Kevin Hern, a former aerospace engineer and businessman who handily beat his Democratic challenger, Tim Gilpin, in Oklahoma’s 1st District, which includes Tulsa.

Thank you, Oklahoma! I am deeply appreciative of your support in this election, and I’m ready to go to Congress to fight for you and our district. Let’s get to work!

A post shared by Kevin Hern (@kevinrhern) on Nov 6, 2018 at 9:34pm PSTNov 6, 2018 at 9:34pm PST

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Hern’s LinkedIn page says he holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Arkansas Tech University.

“While moving around during his early adulthood, Kevin worked a variety of jobs including working in the Aerospace industry for Rockwell, writing computer programs to automate tasks for businesses, real estate, and even hog farming,” his campaign website says.

His dream at the time was to be an astronaut. Then the space shuttle Challenger blew up in 1986, and he pivoted to fast food.

“That was a very humbling experience,” he said in a campaign video. “I’d gone from working with Ph.D. guys to on Saturday morning cooking Egg McMuffins with a 16-year-old.”

Hern is a vocal Trump supporter who wants to expand the US-Mexico border wall and repeal the Affordable Care Act. He owns 10 McDonald’s restaurants around the Tulsa area.

In Washington, he’ll replace Rep. Jim Bridenstine, who’s now the NASA administrator.

In New Jersey’s southernmost 2nd District, Jeff Van Drew, a dentist, will replace Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo, who’s represented that part of the state since 1995 and is retiring.

Mel Evans/AP

Van Drew, who’s been a New Jersey state senator since 2008, has sponsored legislation to help children with dyslexia, preserve farmland, and stop offshore drilling on the coast.

He has said his biggest focus on Capitol Hill will be increasing the number of jobs in New Jersey.

His opponent, the Republican attorney Seth Grossman, did not immediately concede the race as results poured in early Wednesday, though Van Drew locked in 52% of the vote.

All seven of the scientists endorsed by 314 Action who were up for reelection won their races. So did seven other incumbent scientists.

Rep. Ami Bera has represented California’s 7th District since 2013. He’s also a physician and a professor of medicine.

 AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli

They include:

• Democratic Rep. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, a mechanical engineer.
• Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, a doctor and medical-school professor who serves on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
• Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney of California, who’s also on the House committee.
• Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz of California, an emergency-room doctor.
• Democratic Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois, a physicist who’s also on the House committee.
• Democratic Rep. Paul Tonko of New York, a mechanical and industrial engineer who serves on the House committee.
• Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, a physicist and Iraq War veteran.
• Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, an industrial engineer.
• Democratic Rep. Tony Cárdenas of California, a computer scientist.
• Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California, a computer scientist.
• Republican Rep. Chris Collins of New York, a mechanical engineer.
• Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon, a farmer and veterinarian.
• Republican Rep. Ralph Abraham of Louisiana, a doctor and veterinarian who’s also on the House committee.
• Republican Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida, a veterinarian.

SEE ALSO: There are 21 scientists running for Congress — here’s what these engineers, physicians, and computer programmers want to do in DC

 

Donald Trump admitted he has no idea who’s in the caravan

by Chris Cillizza –

(CNN)On Thursday, in a speech in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, focused on his desire to tighten asylum rules to discourage those trying to enter the country illegally, President Donald Trump admitted something important.

“We have no idea who they are,” Trump said of the large group of migrants currently making their way across Mexico toward the US border. Which is an, um, interesting statement given what Trump has said previously about who is in the caravan.

Trump has suggested via Twitter that the caravan contains “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners.” He has described the caravan as containing “very tough criminal elements” and suggesting to reporters that if they went into the middle of the caravan, “you’re going to find MS-13, you’re going to find Middle Eastern, you’re going to find everything.”

The Washington Post’s Kevin Sieff, who has traveled with the caravan, reports a very different nature to the group than Trump describes. Wrote Sieff:

“Women push babies in strollers next to clusters of teenage boys. At night, small families sleep on the ground next to middle-aged men smoking cigarettes. One man walks with his 3-month-old puppy named Muñeca on a red leash. One teenager shows off his tattoo of a marijuana leaf.”

The Point: The honest truth is that there COULD be a violent or bad person or two in the caravan. It’s a group of more than 7,000 people. But the other honest truth is that Trump has NO idea whether there are “unknown Middle Easterners” or “very tough criminal elements” in the caravan. He’s just saying it because he knows it will strike fear in the hearts of GOP base voters. And that’s what he needs this close to the election.

 

Draining Swamps, emptying cups, and soul searching

THE GREAT DIVIDE IS DOOMED!

In some ways the election of the Great Trumpkin might end up being one of the best things to ever have happened to America.   He is SO rude, off-putting, indignantly pro-American, unabashed, ignorant, and obnoxious it is hard to believe anyone really listens to him.   But what he is above all is polarizing. He has people tripping all over each other trying to make their points, holding each other accountable for transgressions real or imagined, and scouring every detail of every action ad nauseam.

Hopefully that will  eventually extend to the  congress, and ultimately end up in a good old-fashioned fist fight where we finally spend our pent-up frustrations and collapse on each other much as two brothers, fighting over the last beer, in exhaustion and acceptance.  Then we will be reminded of the love that binds us in the first place, dust each other off and stroll off-hand in hand to the corner grocery to buy another 6-pack.

America is not quite to that stage yet.  We have been through the first of the “Me-too” scandles and gotten rid of a ton of marginal dead wood at the top of a few industries, and some moguls.  We are now feeling a series of racial backlash where simple ignorance is no longer an excuse.

I will admit that I was insulated from exactly how  horrific the “black face” phenomenon was, and I figured myself fairly sensitive and educated.   Meghan Kelly went way outside the lines with her comments, but evidently those words were the straw that broke the camels back.  The Fox News criticism of the LibTards really never left her.  She always tended towards a snarky side.  I am a progressively moderate person, and I find the LibTard thing embarrassing for both sides.  It would be akin to referring to those of the opposite position as RepubliPigs.

So another “professional” journalist goes the way of Howard Cosell who let slip “look at that little monkey run.”   Watch yourselves people. In this media rich environment those little “slips” are deal stoppers, but as my daddy used to say “you can’t spill what isn’t in your cup.”

Pray, meditate, and concentrate on thinking the best of each other.  Get your mind right.  There is no longer any excuse to say “I am from the South, or “That’s just the way I was raised,  Today (pun intended) is the only day we have.   Get it together.

Maybe then we can drop our fists and learn again to love and work with each other.

 

We’re about to vote again. Go high. Vote for issues not parties. Lets learn to love each other again.

an old story, but bears repeating:

She ‘went high’ instead of going low after overhearing a table of homophobes.

by Robbie Couch

Natalie Woods was eating a restaurant in Addison, Texas, last week, when she overheard some really upsetting language coming from a table nearby.

A fellow diner mentioned how “disgusted” they were by the fact that their “liberal” nephew is gay. One of their family members chimed in, noting they’d need to pray for him to be “cured,”

Their words hit close to home for Woods. She knows the pain of family rejection all too well.

“I was fuming with anger, but then became really sad,” she explained in an email. “I know what [it’s like] to have family members alienate you, or shame you. I felt for this kid, and have been in his shoes.”

Photo courtesy of Natalie Woods, used with permission.

Instead of lashing out with anger — or not saying anything at all — Woods decided to go high, even as the other diners were going low.

Inspired by Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention this past summer, Woods focused on turning the situation into a positive one.

How could she “act like the Jesus [she] grew up learning about,” and respond in a way that might motivate this family to think twice about how they view their LGBTQ loved one?

She pulled out her wallet and asked the restaurant if she could cover the other table’s tab. She left before seeing the family’s reaction, but made sure to scribble a message on the receipt to make her point crystal clear:

Photo courtesy of Natalie Woods, used with permission.

Her note read: “Happy Holidays, from the very gay, very liberal table sitting next to you. Jesus made me this way. … P.S. be accepting of your family.”

Woods posted a photo of the receipt online, and it took off, racking up more than 1,000 Likes and over 130 shares on Facebook by Nov. 17, 2016.

“I’m a 60 year old straight, white guy,” wrote one commenter. “And I totally support what you did. Thanks for making our world a little better.”

“Your gesture brought me to tears,” wrote another. “Thank you. You are such a beautiful person.”

Woods almost didn’t share the receipt online. But knowing how divided the country is after the election, she hoped one small gesture might have a bigger impact.

“I thought about not posting anything, but realized it was important for people after this election to see an act of love, rather than a complaint from the other side of a keyboard,” she wrote.

Photo by Ringo Chiu/AFP/Getty Images.

“I don’t think I did anything magnificent or over the top,” she wrote. “I did what I think people should be doing all of the time for anyone. I mean that — anyone.”

If you’re feeling discouraged and helpless after the outcome of the election, Woods has a message for you: “Get involved.”

“There are organizations, nonprofits, and ways to volunteer all over every community,” she urges. “Small acts of love really matter, but sometimes love looks like protesting, running for local office, marching with minorities, and defending the people around you.”